"Where is Linux the most popular, and where are the different Linux distributions the most popular?". Pingdom has taken a stab at answering this question using the Google Insights for Search. Read on for our observations on the results.

I partially agree but is Linux a low end solution? I think not. Microsoft, however, does have a fixation with low end solutions for the third world. Windows starter edition for e.g. a stripped gutted version of a low end OS (XP home) and I would argue that any version of XP is now low end.

Microsoft has this fixation that if they get the country when they're 'young' and 'under developed' that later on they'll continue to want Microsoft software - in other words, the 'indoctrination effect'. There is a double edge to that - it is assuming that the end user will continue to purchase the product after their standard of living has improved.

How about Vista Home Basic - hardly a high end OS. However, Ubuntu, Open Suse, Debian, etc, do qualify as serious OSes with all the features any power user could want.

True, but as I said - the saviour to Linux shouldn't be focused on the 'low end of town' at the expense of the ones who will pay the bills. Boasting that you have 300million users - and not a single one has the money to purchase your the products you make as a programmer, it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

This is the reason why I keep stating that this dream of the 'third world' suddenly becoming a new market for software is a fiction at best; these folk can barely scrape together a few hundred for a computer; do they really have the money to then purchase localised and supported versions of these applications.

Yes, there are free versions - but the issue is this; this fiction that an expanded market can yield improved profits for software companies is a fiction at best.

Also I don't think the cost problem will go away Vista Ultimate for example is months of wages for many in the third world and beyond the pockets of for example students.

Correct - but then again, students in NZ can get low cost loans form the bank, $2000 interest free over draft, $1000 government loan for course related costs etc. etc. So students in the first world can afford to pay the 'premium' - the question is whether the premium can be justified. Windows Vista Ultimate can't be justified when one looks at MacOS X or even a commercial Linux distribution like SLED 10.

Possibly the question is which will be the solution of choice a Linux OS or a pirated MS OS.

Depends on the end user. People will always want Windows because that is what their favourite application run on. That is why this drive for 'cracking down on piracy' is a double edged sword in the end; before students could easily pirate copies of Microsoft software, now students are either going for Mac's with a cheap office suit (look at iWorks '08 for example) or they go with Linux.